Upgrade Components Search

Hi,

I've just pulled the trigger on the m17x and will eventually be looking to upgrade the CPU, RAM, Wireless Card, HDD and possibly the slot load drive.

I am in the UK so I don't know what availability is like for a lot of these products and I'm a bit of a novice so could someone give me some advice as to whether I have found components that will function in the m17x?

CPU: Will this work with my m17x, bearing in mind I have the i5 540 processor built in? Is it all based around the same chipset etc..
RAM: Is this the Kingston HyperX RAM everyone is on about? Will 2 of these fit in a system to make 8gb total?
Wireless Card: Is this the upgraded wireless card that you can upgrade to?
HDD: I'm going to go for an SSD I think, is this a good one and will it work?

Haven't been able to locate a slot loading blu ray drive that I am confident will fit, not sure about the RAM either really...

Any help much appreciated for a newbie to the world of Alienware!

 

What specs did you pull the trigger on? For your new system on order?

I just had a quick look at the links and everything seems fine and will work in the M17x system however the ram you have linked is desktop ram. You need to be looking for so-dimm notebook ram. Cheers.
ie. 4GB sodimm 1333mhz.

 

I would think twice about buying the wireless card. The gains are negligible. Everything else looks good! (aside from what was mentioned above.)

 

The system I went for is the basic model apart from the XFire 5870s and the Screen upgrade. Figured I'd just put everything else in as it's cheaper.

I think I will leave the wireless card for now, I had read that it isn't that useful unless you are streaming big files or something.

Can't seem to find any of the correct ram on ebay then! Is it worth buying off the kingston website? If so which is the correct one as there are loads of different 8gb kits.

 

You basically need this for the RAM

4gb sodimm DDR3 1333Mhz
2 sticks of them and it should be all good.
You can search on ebay with something like this;

4gb sodimm DDR3 1333Mhz items - Get great deals on Computing items on eBay UK!

Theres quite a few to choose from. You basically need to check that they are single 4gb sticks running at 1333Mhz and then pretty much which ever is cheapest should be okay. Also just becareful as its always good to double check before buying on ebay, but apart from that it should be all good. Cheers.

 

That's great, cheers! So do I not need to worry about all this Kingston HyperX business? Is it pretty much all the same as long as it's ddr3 1333Mhz Sodimm?

 

Correct.

/10 char

 

Will this do the job then? It says Dell on it so I assume it is also AW compatible. Though I have my doubts as to whether their so called Dell Ram differs at all from the apple/acer/asus etc RAM they also offer, all the same price though!

Note: Buying two of these would fit in? I'm paranoid about getting a 2x2gb kit that is sold as 4gb when it actually takes up 2 slots etc...

 

Yeh becareful about 4gig advertising. A lot of them are 2X 2gb sticks instead of the single 4gb stick that you want. The M17x only has 2 ram slots so yeh you will want to get 2 times single 4gb DDR3 Sodimm 1333Mhz ram sticks.
Just when purchasing make sure to double check with the seller if you can that they are single 4gb sticks then you can go ahead and buy 2. Cheers. Happy hunting.